


Forgiveness 5+1 -- Third Time: Age 18

by lanapanda



Series: Kiss and Make Up [3]
Category: Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 15:25:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/640290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanapanda/pseuds/lanapanda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Third out of Five times Tony and Bruce kissed and made up (and the one time they didn’t). Set in a random AU where the two first met at age 6.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forgiveness 5+1 -- Third Time: Age 18

**Author's Note:**

> Keeping the essence of their backstories while keeping them together makes for some interesting adjustments. I apologize for any damage done to your feels in this one, especially since the first two are decidedly full of fluff.

There was a sickening crunch when Brian Banner hit the floor: the sound of a fragile liquor glass meeting its end underneath the weight of a man suddenly too imbalanced to hold it. Tony stood over the older man’s prone body, a bookend still held in one partly upraised hand. His breathing was heavy, and his eyes were wide and round as he met Bruce’s panicked stare.  
  
The handprint around Bruce’s throat was livid, deep reds that would go an angry purple by the end of the night. Tony tightened his grip on the bookend until his knuckles were white and stared down at Brian again.  
  
The bookend itself was heavy -- solid brass and shaped like a cross between a ram and a gazelle with two long horns curved down on either side of it. Heavy enough to knock out a full grown man. Heavy enough to finish the job. Tony held the bookend in both hands and raised his arms high above his head.  
  
“No, _don’t!_ ” Bruce’s voice was hoarse, hardly above a panicked whisper. He stumbled and fell to his hands and knees, a faint splatter of warm blood falling across his cheek as Tony drove the bookend down again against the back of Brian Banner’s skull. “No... oh no...”  
  
Tony felt the brass sliding from his fingers and just barely caught the edge of it before the bookend could fall from his hand entirely. His heart was loud in his ears and for a moment all he could do was stand there and stare. Scalp wounds, they bled a lot. They could make things look worse than they really were. But Tony knew from that little bit of ‘give’ he felt on impact at that last blow that it was very unlikely that this could look worse than it really was.  
  
Bruce staggered to his feet and almost tripped over his father’s body in his desperation to get to Tony and wrap both arms around his waist. He hugged Tony close and whispered, “Oh God... Tony, no... no... _why_?” Now the police were going to come. Now they were going to take the one person he had left that meant anything. Bruce was going to be alone. Just the thought of it made him tangle both hands into fists, holding onto Tony’s immaculate white dress shirt as tightly as he could.  
  
They were supposed to be going to prom. Together. Nothing else was supposed to matter.  
  
“He was going to kill you, Bruce,” Tony replied softly. He looked at his hands (the bookend still held with two fingers crooked through the horns) as Bruce held onto him and it felt like they belonged to someone else. Had he really...? Yes. Yes he had. Tony’s mind started to race. They couldn’t stay here. But that was okay. They weren’t supposed to be here. It was prom night, after all.  Tony took a deep breath. “Bruce. Go get dressed.”  
  
“What? Tony are you _nuts_? We can’t just go to prom like nothing happened! I can barely talk. Someone’s going to figure out --”  
  
“Just leave it to me, Bruce, okay?” The calm felt eerie, even to Tony. Maybe his dad had been right. Maybe he wasn’t really a person at all. Maybe the terrorists had done Tony a favor three years ago, blowing up that car so he wouldn’t have to ask Howard Stark’s advice on how best to conceal a murder.  
  
He wished they’d left his mother out of it, though.  
  
Bruce leaned back a little, enough to get a good look at the brutal calculation in Tony’s eyes. He felt a brief flash of fear, cold and abrupt over the heat of his rising panic, and then shoved both aside. “Okay,” Bruce said with a nod and he slowly uncurled his fingers and let go of Tony’s shirt. “Y-you... you aren’t leaving, right?”  
  
“Not without you. Go on,” Tony nodded towards the hallway that led to Bruce’s room. Once Bruce had made his way down the hall, Tony surveyed the living room again.  
  
Bookshelf, bookend. Hallway. Doorway. Tony started piecing together the physics in his mind even as he wiped off the bookend with his pocket handkerchief. A thief would come in to Brian staggering around, catching him unawares. Hit him with the bookend. Wipe it off. Toss it aside. The kitchen was shitty. No thief would look for silverware there. But this was a bad neighborhood and they’d go for hiding spots, looking for drugs. And for money. Stuff they could pawn. That meant the bedroom. Tony stalked that way, expression fixed in a faint scowl of determination.  


\-------------------

  
By the time Bruce was done changing clothes, Tony had torn apart Brian Banner’s room. Dresser drawers were pulled out; the mattress was flipped. Clothes were strewn everywhere. Tony had pulled on a pair of gloves he took from the closet and was meticulously keeping track of where he stepped. He stopped Bruce on the threshold of his own room and shook his head, “Almost done. But first we toss your room too -- you have any money in here that’s easy to find? We need to take it. And you need to bring the clothes you were wearing with us.”  
  
“... do you really think this will work?” Bruce started yanking the covers from his bed and gave the mattress a good shove to one side, nevertheless.  
  
“Yes, it’s going to work. Brian attacked you. You ran. You came to my place. I tried to talk you into going to the doctor but you wouldn’t. We spent the night together -- are spending the night together. I’ll tweak the security footage when we get back to my place,” Tony laid it all out logically, and he pushed Bruce’s bookcase aside for good measure.  
  
Bruce’s wince at seeing his copy of Goldstein's Classical Mechanics go tumbling unceremoniously to the floor was the first pang of guilt Tony had felt all night.  
  
“Sorry. I’ll get you another if I need to,” Tony murmured. He looked around. This was going to be alright. It was cold enough for them to have a bonfire at his place, and they’d done that often enough that it wouldn’t be odd. Anything they needed to get rid of, they could burn. And the ashes would go into the compost in the morning. With any luck, it’d be a few days before someone realized what had happened. It wasn’t like Brian Banner was gainfully employed, and Bruce was hurt badly enough this time that his staying with Tony for his own safety would not be questioned.  
  
“It’s okay, Tony,” Bruce whispered to save his voice and tried to ignore just how surreal it felt to be accepting that particular apology when compared to the nightmare that was waiting for them in the next room.

This was a side of Tony that Bruce had never seen before. Ruthless. Calculating. Completely brilliant and without a shred of morality. It suddenly hit him that _this_ was the man Howard Stark had been trying to build. This side of Tony that Bruce never, ever wanted to see again in his life was exactly what Howard Stark had wanted.  
  
Tony just nodded. “Come on, I’ll take you home. Are you going to be okay with lying to the police if it comes to that?”  
  
“... he _made_ me lie about what he did to mom, Tony. I think I can manage to cover for my boyfriend.” The whisper didn’t capture the frustration and anguish that welled up suddenly, and Bruce wiped tears away with the back of his hand.  
  
“Shhhh. Hey, it’s going to be alright. I’m sorry it’s like this Bruce, I am,” Tony crossed the scant space in Bruce’s room to fold his boyfriend into his arms and hug him gently. Bruce’s tears were hot against his collar, and Tony ran a hand through that curly hair he’d fallen in love with years ago as he murmured, “This is the last time. No more violence. No more lies. I’m going to keep you safe. And I’m sorry you had to go through all this for so long.”  
  
“T-thank you,” Bruce whispered brokenly then took a deep breath to say, “I love you, Tony. It’s okay.” He pressed a kiss against Tony’s neck and held onto him for as long as he could get away with. Even in a bad neighborhood, someone might see them if they didn’t leave soon.  
  
“I love you too, Bruce. Always,” Tony murmured, and he kept an arm around Bruce as he guided him out into the hallway, showing him where to step until they got to the back door. “I’m going to take one more look around. You duck down in the back seat and try to get comfortable, okay?”  
  
“Okay,” Bruce said with a weak nod. Suddenly, all he wanted was to hide and the idea of being tucked into the warmth of Tony’s car and being taken away to somewhere else (anywhere else) was infinitely appealing.  
  
Tony watched Bruce go, and then took one more quick survey to be sure he hadn’t left anything of his own on the premises. He paused in the hallway, one last time.  
  
“ _Monster_...” Brian Banner’s faint groan sounded as broken as he was. He hadn’t moved from that spot on the floor, but one arm was now outstretched towards the back door where Bruce had just left.  
  
“No. He’s not the monster you sonovabitch. I am,” Tony crouched down enough to be sure that Brian got a good look as he took his last shuddering breath. He waited for a slow count of sixty to be sure the man didn’t breathe again and watched as Brian Banner’s eyes started to glaze over.  
  
His parents were gone. Now Bruce’s parents were gone. They still had each other, but would Bruce ever look at him the same way again? Tony just didn’t know. He stood up and put one hand over the spot on his neck where Bruce’s lips had just been only minutes before. “I am,” he repeated, then turned and left it all behind.  
  
Time to go home.


End file.
